Chapter 18 Gedeon #2
The method was supposed to cause a burning sensation, set your target’s nerves aflame, and based on how Zion’s shoulders rose and fell in prolonged breaths, it was doing exactly that. The endorphins’ release induced a high of sorts.
Soon, red lines crisscrossed his back and ran all the way to his upper thighs. The streaks of color blended, transforming him into a painting of pain and bliss.
Some compared this to meditation.
Soreness set in my arms from the continuous exertion, but the heat slithered down to my abdomen in tandem with Zion’s gasps.
“I— Fuck,” he hissed.
I slowed the flow until the leather skimmed his flesh instead of walloping it.
Veins popped out in his forearms. “Please.”
“Yes?” Gathering both floggers in my left hand, I mapped out his spine with the other, his skin slightly sticky from sweat, his flesh warm. “Is there something you want, Zion?”
He puffed out an exhale. “I want…”
Dropping the floggers onto the dresser, I brushed up the inside of his thighs, taunting him by avoiding his groin. He rocked back, in search of what I refused to grant him.
The power I held over him grew dark as the need to grip his hips and rail him until he lost his speech ability overtook me.
Steeling myself, I massaged his ass, firm from a lifetime of training, and spread it apart to press a forefinger to his rim.
He lurched forward and then backward, half-grinding, half-fleeing my touch, in turn feeding my desire to brand him in all the ways imaginable.
Rubbing his tight ring, I asked, “Have you ever been fucked?”
He clenched. “I always did the fucking.”
A deep chuckle rumbled out of me. “That is going to change. But I like knowing I will be the first and the last to take you.” I pushed my finger inside him up to the first knuckle, a mere inch of intrusion.
“Only I will not tell you when, Zion. I will not give you a clue. I will employ the same tactics you did with me. I will tease you, provoke you, rouse you, until you can’t think about anything else but me inside of you. ”
My free hand drifted down his side, increment by increment, trailing to his groin.
His pelvis twitched and fists curled—a sign that he was torturously in need of release.
Gripping him, I leisurely stroked upward, twisting around the head, collecting the wetness and tightening my grasp. “That night at Vice, when I said I was taking you for myself, I meant all of you, Zion. I will not settle for less than everything.”
I pumped up and down, relishing how he struggled to keep upright, teetering and leaning into me for balance.
“Your mouth.” I exhaled below his ear, earning a shiver. “Your groans.” Sinking my canines into the side of his neck, certainly leaving a bruise, I licked the traces of my teeth.
There was something about branding your chosen ones in the most primitive way. Claiming them savagely, like a predator. Marking them for all to see. Drowning in the whimpers of your prey.
“Your scars.” Keeping my digit inside him, curling it, I simultaneously stroked him in a way I knew would drive him mad. “And your ass.”
I bit his shoulder to leave another mark, and he thrusted into my fist, once, twice—
He stilled, trembling as spurts of his cum painted the dresser, the pearly liquid complimenting the gray color of the furniture we had desecrated.
Now, whenever I would enter this bedroom and notice the dresser, the memory of Zion falling apart in my arms was going to surface.
Perfect.
Untying the blindfold, I met his eyes in our reflection in the window. The glass blurred our forms into one, precisely how I craved for things to be.
Embracing him from behind, splaying my palms across his torso, I swept my lips against the abused flesh on his shoulder line. “Are you okay?”
“Uh…” Panting, he quietened. “I think so.”
“Wait here.” A peck on his temple, and I strode to the bathroom. Keeping the lights off to avoid shocking him out of his dizzy state, I dampened three towels in the sink and wrung out the extra moisture.
Careful not to aggravate the affected skin, I draped the cool fabric over his back and hooked the second towel around his hips to soothe the irritation.
“That was—” He swallowed. “I don’t know what that was.”
Reining in my laugh, I dabbed the sheen of sweat off his forehead, and then wiped the dresser clean of any residue of our games.
Zion zeroed in on the two black floggers resting on the piece of furniture. “Where did you learn that?”
“Damia,” I said, strolling to the closet made to fit the entire wall.
“What?” He whipped around, the towels falling to the floor in a heap around his bare feet.
“She experienced this once, thought I would like it, and connected me with her…let’s say acquaintance,” I shared as I dug into the shelves filled with his and Kali’s clothing.
“A few lessons, a couple months of practice on willing subjects”—I threw Zion a pair of navy sweatpants and a pale-blue hoodie—“and it turned out that she was right; I quite enjoy doing this.”
One foot inside the sweatpants, Zion paused, focusing on the uncomfortable bulge in my pants. “What about you?”
“This was not about me.” I shut the closet’s sliding door, hiding the meager outfits in it. Kali still hadn’t procured enough clothing for herself—the dozen items collecting dust on the shelves were a far cry from what she used to have before Zion had incinerated her wardrobe. “Same as with Kali.”
“Oh, shit.” He hurried to finish dressing, his hoodie failing to conceal the emerging spots of discoloration on his neck.
Nowhere near enough to satisfy me. But I shoved that thought away, instead asking, “What’s wrong?”
“I swore to Ava I would come to Vice to take over the watch from her. Jayla’s shift ends before Kali’s.” Finishing lacing up his boots, he headed for the door. “You can’t come. They can’t see you.”
Nobody knew I was alive and not locked up in one of Ilasall’s prison cells.
“I’ll bring Kali back,” he said, then closed the door behind him.
Rubbing my temple, hoping it would chase the sudden sense of loneliness away, I trudged to the farthest of the three windows and leaned against the windowsill.
A pair of green eyes narrowed in on me as the furry creature stretched in the corner.
“Darkness.” I acknowledged the kitten with the name I had chosen for her during my absence. “Have you missed me?”